1. All the older books of the Apocrypha, as we have just intimated, and even some of the later, are wholly silent with regard to a future state of existence. The rewards of virtue and the punishment of sin, they place expressly in the experience of this life, in the reputation that one leaves behind, and in the prosperous or adverse fortune of his descendants. And here the writers drop the subject; notwithstanding they had frequent occasions to carry it forward into another life, if such were the tenor of their views.1 Of all the Apocryphal books, except the second of Esdras which has been forged by some Christian since the time of the New Testament, there are but two, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Second of Maccabees, which contain allusions to another world of retribution; and these were composed, the latter at some time during the 150 years before Christ, and the former, perhaps still later, near the Christian era.3 These circum

1 On the subject of rewards and punishments, see Tobit iii. 10. iv. 5--9. xii. 8-10 xiv. 9-11. Ecclus. passim, particularly xxxix. 9-11, 25-31. xl. 1-14. Baruch iii. 13, 14; iv. 1. 1 Macc. ii. 50-64, vi. 44. On the state of the dead, Tobit iii, 6. Ecclus. xiv. 15-19; xvii. 27-30; xxii. 11, 12; xxxviii. 16-23 ; xli. 1-4. Baruch ii, 17, 18.

But

2 A solitary expression in the book of Judith also, (ch. xvi. 17,) is sometimes quoted as referring to future torment. such an application is not necessary in itself, nor is it countenanced by any thing else in the book; and it makes an abrupt break in the context. Whoever compares the following passages, will see at once that the phrases quoted are currently us ed by the Apocryphal writers, with reference only to natural death and the judgments of this life: Apocryphal Esther i. 11. Judith viii. 27. Ecclus. vii. 16, 17; x. 11; xvi, 6-8 ; xix. 3 ; xxi. 9 xxiii. 16; xxviii. 23; xxxvi. 9. Baruch iv. 35. 3 As to the dates of the several books of the Apocrypha, which

stances, when taken together and compared with the manifest doctrine of the Jews in the time of the Old Testament, seem to favor the conjecture that the idea of future punishment did not appear among them till about 150 or 200 years before Christ when it began, perhaps to arise among the Pharisees, who had lately separated from the Sadducees.

2. When we come to the second book of Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, and lastly to the works of Philo, which were written about the time of our Saviour's ministry, we find them referring to the unhappy state of the wicked after death. Now, had Gehenna become the current name of that state, it seems likely that, in some of these cases, it would have been introduced, from the force of habit, or for convenience. We lay, indeed, no great stress on its entire omission, nor on the circumlocutions to which the two latter authors were obliged sometimes to resort, for want of an appropriate term; yet these circumstances show in what direction the natural course of inference bears.

3. From the peculiar relation, and subsequent usage, of the word, it will be admitted, by all critics, that whensoever Gehenna did become appropriated to a place or state of future torment, it was meant to designate it as an abode of fire, a condition characterized by fire; so that the received notion of future misery must, at that time,

are very uncertain, we have been guided by Prideaux's Connections, and Horne's Introduction.

have been habitually associated with the idea of fire, as it has been in modern ages. Let it, then, be carefully observed, that during the period now under review, the crude notions which spread among the Jews concerning future misery, seem to have been altogether unconnected with the idea of fire, either as a reality or as a figure. The second book of Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the works of Philo, the only sources of information, never described the condition of the wicked after death, by any metaphor of the kind. On the contrary they represent it in another light. According to the first, the pious Jews, who suf fered martyrdom, or fell in battle, believed that God would, in due time, restore their souls from the realms of death to their former bodies: 1 whether on this earth or in some other region, does not appear. Those, too, who died in defence of the law, though otherwise sinful and even rebellious, might expect the same favor, should an attonement be offered for their sins, by the survivors. But while the faithful entertained such confidence for themselves, one of them is represented in his last moments as threatening the heathen tyrant, their ruthless persecutor, that he would have no resurrection to life.'3 His soul, after his decease, would be left forever in the place of the dead: a dark and undesirable abode, according to the opinion of the ancients, an obscure region, in which perpetual confinement must have presented a dreadful idea to the living. Such are the views we gather from the

1 2 Macc. vii. 9, 11, 14, 23, 29, 36; xiv. 46. 3 Ditto vii. 14.

2 Ditto xii. 40--45.

In the Wisdom of

second book of Maccabees. Solomon, a Jewish production from the Alexandrian hotbed of Platonism, we meet with a doctrine somewhat different. Here, no return of departed spirits, nor reunion with their bodies, is intimated. The souls of the righteous, the author represents, enter at death on a state of peace, hope and honor; and are entrusted with some kind of dominion over the living. But those of the wicked go into a darkness, of which that once brought upon Egypt was but an image. They are in tribulation, and are accounted a reproach among the dead. At a certain time, which the author calls the visitation of souls, the just will be conducted to a glorious palace and receive a beautiful crown; but the unjust shall give in the account of their sins with fear, and behold with surprise and hopeless regret the deliverance of the godly whom they had contemned in this world. The whole creation shall fight against them. Thunderbolts and hailstones shall be discharged upon them from on high; the sea shall rage againt them; and a mighty wind shall blow them away. It should be remembered that these more highly colored representations are given by an Egyptian Jew; and not by an inhabitant of Palestine. Nearly the same are the ideas of Philo, another Egyptian Jew; if indeed he be not, as many account him, the identical author of the Wisdom of Solomon. Though born before the Christian era, he lived several years after our Lord's crucifixion. In the works which bear his

1 Wisdom of Solomon iii. xvii. 21.

; iv. 16--20; v. 1-23;

name, the immortality of the soul is clearly taught together with the future happiness of the righteous, and misery of the wicked. The place of the impious, hereafter, he describes as ' a dark region which is covered with profound night and perpetual blackness,' where they live in an eternal death. But, we think, he never represents it as a scene of fire, nor even alludes to it by that glaring metaphor, which has always been the first and the favorite one, wherever the notion of a burning hell prevailed. From the few traces, therefore, which remain to us of this age, and which have now been presented, it seems that the idea of future punishment, such as it was among the Jews, was associated with that of darkness, and not of fire; and we shall have occasion to see that among those of Palestine, the misery of the wicked was supposed to consist rather in privation than in positive infliction. To denote such views it is hardly credible that they can have employed that "Gehenna of fire, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.'

The works of Philo bring us to the times of the New Testament. Thus far, we have seen, there is no indication that Gehenna had become appropriated to a place of future torment. On the contrary, all the circumstances which relate to the question, have an opposite bearing. Here we might drop the inquiry, were it not for two

2 Philonis J. Opera, Tom. i. pp. 223, 676, Edit. Mangey. Of Philo's works, we have at hand only a small collection of ex. tracts, begun some time since, but interrupted. If we err in presuming that he never connects the idea of fire with that of fature punishment, we claim the privilege of correction.